I realise that there is another side to this: the sheer weight of requests, often themselves highly political, or near-vexatious, that suck up resources.
A lot of this would go away if agencies published everything unless there was a good reason not to. It would save them time and resources and was where the original act and the Framework for Government-Held Information was pointing. Disk storage is infinite.
But the mortal fear of having a cockup exposed will always prevent this, and now we have the added factor of dodgy decisions being made for political purposes (e.g. RoNS). Sadly, the Auditor-General doesn t see it as part of their role to police whether agencies are living up to their legislative requirements.
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Tuesday 13 April 2021
Over recent months I, along with other senior MPs, have been considering the future accommodation needs of Parliament.
For many years now, it has been clear that current accommodation on the parliamentary precinct is not fit for purpose and can no longer effectively support a modern, accessible Parliament. The growing issue was greatly exacerbated last year by the need to vacate Bowen House for seismic strengthening and we are now beyond capacity with Ministers, members and staff scattered across four buildings (one of which is not on the parliamentary precinct) in a rather haphazard manner. While we have done our best with available space, current arrangements are subpar, uneconomic and, unsustainable, especially when the possible future growth of our Parliament is taken into consideration.